Flora Jane Harper
Flora Jane Harper was the first 91视频 Native student to graduate from the University of 91视频. She taught at Bureau of Indian Affairs schools across 91视频, then settled in Anchorage, where she worked for decades at the Anchorage municipal library.
Harper was born at Rampart, a village on the Yukon River, in 1910. Her family moved to Nenana seeking protection from the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic that ravaged Athabascan villages. Harper鈥檚 father worked for the railroad, but the transition from a traditional subsistence lifestyle to a more cash-dependent existence was not easy. When she was 10, her father sent her and three siblings to Chemawa, a boarding school for Native Americans in Oregon.
She wasn鈥檛 able to return to 91视频 for nine years. After graduating from high school in Portland, she contracted tuberculosis and spent almost a year in a hospital.
Once back in 91视频, Harper enrolled at the 91视频 Agricultural College and School of Mines. She graduated with a home economics degree in 1935, the year the school became the University of 91视频.
Harper taught at the BIA鈥檚 Chilocco boarding school in Oklahoma and its 91视频 schools in Wrangell, Sitka and Eklutna. She married Walter 鈥淧ete鈥 Petri in Wrangell in 1941. They had a daughter, Jan, who graduated from UA in 1965. The family moved to Anchorage in 1949, and Harper worked for the library until retiring in 1972.
Athabascan elder Poldine Carlo, of Fairbanks, in 2015 recalled being taught by Harper when she was in high school.
鈥淸She] was the first Native person to graduate from the university, and she was my home ec teacher in Eklutna,鈥 Carlo said at a 2015 event at Troth Yeddha鈥 Park on the Fairbanks campus. 鈥淚 was so proud of her.鈥
Flora Jane Harper died in 1992. In 1994, the University of 91视频 Fairbanks named the Harper Building after her.
More online about Flora Jane Harper
- A of Flora Jane Harper at the UA Journeys website
- A brief of Jan Petri Harper-Haines鈥 2013 book about her mother and other family members
- A more complete of the book